EVGA turned up in style for today’s launch of Nvidia’s Geforce GTX 660 Ti as the company is launching its GTX 660 Ti Superclocked (SC) 2GB card. As the name suggests, the Superclocked comes with a factory overclock from standard 915MHz to 980MHz. The overclock is quite high, especially considering that the GTX 660 Ti Superclocked’s Boost clock stands at 1059MHz.

EVGA’s Superclocked resembles Nvidia’s reference design. Most of the partners opted for dual fan coolers, hoping that it will separate them from the pack and attract buyers. EVGA ended up using single fan cooler that looks much like the reference version. However, the cooler is very good at what it does and the GTX 660 Ti SC is almost inaudible, even under heavy load.

EVGA left the memory at reference 1502MHz (6008MHz effectively). You may recall that the memory on GTX 680/670 cards is clocked the same. By now we can say with certainty that overclocking the memory would’ve brought performance improvements, but it appears as if EVGA stuck to some Nvidia guidelines on overclocking with reference cooling.

Although the GTX 660 Ti and GTX 670 run at same clocks and have the same number of CUDA cores (1334), cutting ROPs from 32 to 24 and the memory interface from 256-bit to 192-bit came at an expense. This is the reason why a reference clocked GTX 660 Ti cannot catch up with the GTX 670. However, overclocked cards such as EVGA’s Superclocked usually come as an answer to those “prayers”. If the GTX 660 Ti Superclocked 2GB provides the kind of overclocking we’ve come to expect from the GTX 670, we’ve no doubt it will match its performance without trouble. Note that the GTX 660 Ti Superclocked goes for €273 + VAT.

The box looks nice and is tough enough to shield the card. Inside the cardboard box is plastic packaging, rather than more paper and cardboard, which we noticed with some earlier cards by EVGA. The small SC logo means the card is Superclocked edition. There are no other details that refer to the Superclocked card, rather general stuff related to the GTX 660 Ti. The box doesn’t say that users will get a gift game in Borderlands 2. We found out that the voucher for the game wasn’t included in the packages for the press but does come with Superclocked cards. We must say that gift games are something we’ve missed dearly, both with AMD and Nvidia, so we definitely welcome this move.

EVGA GTX 660 Ti Superclocked’s packaging is more or less standard. In the box you’ll find:

EVGA GTX 660 Ti Superclocked (SC) graphics card has dual slot air cooling that is very similar to Nvidia’s reference design. The Base clock on the Superclocked card is higher than reference, i.e. up from 915MHz to 980MHz. Still, this didn’t prove too troublesome for the cooler which ran quiet even under load.

Although the GTX 670 is 24.3cm long, the PCB is only 17.3cm, which is clear once you look at the card from the back.

Nvidia moved the power circuitry from its usual spot at the end of the card towards the I/O panel. This left empty space at the end of the PCB, so the company simply cut it off and saved on materials.

GTX 660 Ti SC 2GB is powered via two 6-pin power connectors, just like the reference GTX 660 Ti or GTX 670 card. The reference GTX 660 Ti’s TDP is at 150W.

The blower style fan stands on the plastic bracket that’s mounted on the PCB.

The heatsink is made of one piece of aluminum. Since there are no heatpipes, the copper base was made pretty wide in order to boost dissipation.

EVGA’s GTX 660 TI SC packs a total of 2GB of GDDR5, in eight memory modules. Two of the modules are placed on the back.

You should know that EVGA plans for a version of the GTX 660 Ti with 3GB of memory in a few weeks time.

The memory chips in question come from Hynix (model No: H5GQ2H24AFR-R0C). They’re specified to run at 1500MHz (6000MHz GDDR5 effectively).

Video outs include two dual-link DVIs (only one is VGA capable) and standard HDMI and DisplayPort connectors. Note that all four outs can be used simultaneously.

The GTX 670 comes with two SLI connectors usually found only on Nvidia’s high end cards. This means that users can daisy chain more cards in a Quad GTX 660 Ti system. We're actualy not sure whether Quad SLI is possible, since Nvidia officially supports only 3-way SLI, however, we're talking about driver restrictions, so anything is possible. If you remember the 301.42 driver adds Quad SLI support for GTX 670.

The fan is not very loud and working next to a GTX 660 Ti superclocked 2GB is quite comfortable, even when the card is under full load. For our overclocking, we sped up the fan to 80%. We used PrecisionX tool, which of course supports the GTX 660 Ti. To mark the launch, EVGA even made the new skin, picture below.

We managed to get GPU clocks similar to those on GTX 670 cards. The GPU ran stable at Base clock of 1050MHz (Boost clock). The memory handled GPU overclockingn well. We overclocked the memory by 200MHz (effectively 800MHz). It appears as if the memory could take more, but we didn’t have more time for overclocking.

It’s important to note that we could’ve scored the same results with AUTO fan mode, but the fan wouldn’t go much higher, which would result in lower Boost clocks. In order to squeeze out more performance, we sped up the fans manually.

The cooler was never loud while in AUTO mode and never exceeded 61 percent. Once the fan is sped up to 80 percent, you’ll definitely hear it, but it still won’t be too loud.

The following two GPUz shots show temperatures when the fan is in AUTO mode and when maxed out.

Thermals at default clock:

Power Consumption

Consumption is good and our overclock cost only about 10W.

The Geforce GTX 660 Ti is Nvidia’s new graphics card that aims to cater to wider masses of gamers. The GTX 660 Ti Superclocked 2GB launched at €273 + VAT, while the reference card launched at €259. The price difference isn’t that significant, especially if you like EVGA’s gear. Note that not only does the card come with a factory overclock, EVGA also ships a free game, i.e. a voucher for Borderlands 2.

We’ve seen that the GTX 660 Ti SC offers quality performance at 1920x1080. At this resolution, it’s even capable of beating the HD 7950.

EVGA uses cooling similar to the reference solution, meaning blower style cooling. This should not concern you unless you’re planning on more serious overclocking. Luckily, the cooler is almost inaudible, even when the card is under load.

Those who want more straight out of the box should perhaps wait for the FTW version. EVGA has also announced a GTX 660 Ti with 3GB of memory, which is yet another alternative if you don’t want to jump the gun. However, choosing the GTX 660 Ti Superclocked is definitely not a wrong choice either and the card will reward you with a nice fusion of power, performance and affordability.

Following up on their GTX 680 Beast and Ultra Charged cards, Point of View / TGT decided to offer even more to the enthusiast bunch. So, if 2GB isn’t enough for you, you should know that PoV / TGT‘s offer now boasts the GTX 680 Ultra Charged with 4GB of memory. Note however that other than the memory, the card is identical to the GTX 680 Ultra Charged, meaning it packs a GPU factory overclocked by 105MHz. Those who crave more can always go for the GTX 680 Beast, whose GPU is factory overclocked by 157MHz.

The high clocks are not a problem thanks to the special triple slot cooling. TGT opted for hand selected low leakage chips in order to provide maximum performance. This ensures that auto-overclocks are maxed out and allows for superior overclocking headroom.

GTX 680 Ultra Charged comes with no special extras – you get a driver CD and a user manual. The box is tough, with a design along the lines of PoV/TGT’s earlier designs. We’d love to see a gift game with premium cards, but it seems like those days are gone.

GTX 680 Ultra Charged 4GB graphics card uses large but efficient cooling. We’ve had the chance to see it in action on the GTX 680 Beast and GTX 680 Ultra Charged 2GB cards and although it did a good cooling job, what we liked the most was its silent operation.

Seeing as how the Ultra Charged 4GB and Ultra Charged 2GB only differ in memory, we expect the cooler to repeat its earlier feat.

The fans are enclosed in a plastic mask, which is easily removable if you want to clean them. The cooler has different fans - the central fan is a 9cm one while the other two are 8cm in diameter. Size isn’t the only difference as the propellers were designed differently as well.

All three fans are connected via a single power connector, so Auto or manual RPM settings introduce changes on all three fans. The three fans make sure that every part of the heatsink is nice and cool.

The heatsink is split in two parts, with five heatpipes going through - two go towards the I/O panel, while three go in the opposite direction.

Heatpipes start on in the pretty large copper base. The base is massive, partly because the cooler is held in place only with four screws, which again go through the base. The design is pretty tough and we didn’t hear/see any vibration due to the number of fans. PoV / TGT used foam-like pads in two places between the heatsink and PCB, in order to ensure a proper and stable fit with no vibration noise.

PoV/TGT strapped the card with a heatspreader for memory and other low profile components on the front PCB. TGT’s backplate can be found in the back, although it doesn’t touch the memory so it’s questionable whether it improves cooling performance. However, it prevents the PCB from warping and definitely makes the card look better.

Reference GTX 680 cards draw power via two 6-pin connectors. Factory overclocked GTX 680 Ultra Charged has one 6-pin and one 8-pin power connector. Point of View / TGT uses five phase PWM design, one phase more than on the reference card.

GTX 680 Ultracharged comes with two dual-link DVI outs, but only one is analog VGA-out capable. The VGA-out requires using the bottom DVI – the one in line with HDMI and DisplayPort connectors. Nvidia made sure not to lag behind the competition so Kepler based cards can run up to four displays simultaneously.

The card has two SLI connectors, which means Quad GPU is possible. Note however that being three slots wide, finding room for four GTX 680 Ultra Charged cards will be a challenge.

We must admit that we had great expectations when it comes to overclocking, since TGT claims it used handpicked low leakage chips. Such chips do better with auto overclocking and tend to deliver higher maximum clocks, but should provide superior overclocking headroom as well.

Overclocking the memory was quite interesting, seeing as how the card has 4GB of memory. Naturally, doubling the number of memory chips doubles the chance of one of them turning out overclocking unfriendly, but luckily, all of them ran flawlessly, even after our 225MHz overclock (900MHz effectively).

We’ve noticed that the Power Target is a bit higher than on the reference design, but the voltage was left at reference values.

Before we move on, we should say that we left the fans in AUTO mode. The cooler ran so well that there was simply no need for it and the fans remained quiet even after our overclocking. Thermal throttling occurs at above 79°C, but the GTX 680 Ultra Charged never exceeded 72°C – that’s right, not even after overclocking.

Squeezing out maximum clocks, and in turn performance, from the GK104 requires a lot of attention. Below is a clear example of when to use the Power Target slider.

Once we overclocked the GPU by +70MHz, we noticed that auto-overclocking figures tend to oscillate somewhat, as you can see on the picture below. Quality GPU and cooling prevent more serious changes but we chose to stabilize the clocks by dragging the Power Target slider far right, allowing for maximum TDP. It worked and, as you can see from the second picture below, the GPU clock is nailed to 1269MHz.

The next photo proves that TGT really chose low leakage chips. Not even 100MHz extra turned out too much for this card. The maximum auto-overclock was 1289MHz, and as you can see from the picture below, the GPU ran at this clock the entire time.

We didn’t have much time on our hands and thus couldn’t check, but we’re pretty sure you could squeeze out a bit more from this card.

If you read the review in detail, you know that the cooling is excellent. First and foremost, it remained quiet when the card was working hard and it didn’t even flinch after our 100MHz (205MHz higher than reference) – golden silence. Note that such performance means we never utilized the cooler to its max, i.e. we didn’t speed up the fans.

Point of View / TGT found a perfect formula for cooling overclocked GTX 680 (GK104 GPUs). There was no secret recipe – massive cooling did the trick.

If you look at the cooling performance, it will be clear why TGT chose it to cool the fastest GTX 680s. The cooler was more than up to the task throughout our tests. We overclocked the core by another 100MHz (205MHz higher than reference) and the memory by 225MHz (900MHz effectively), but the cooler hardly noticed.

The cooling does however have one shortcoming – it takes up three slots. While you may find enough room for SLI or three-way SLI in most rigs, you can just about forget about fitting a Quad SLI setup.

Games don’t seem to notice the doubled memory, but this does not mean that future games won’t benefit from it. The good news is that 4GB of memory didn’t negatively affect GPU overclocking.

The GTX 680 Ultra Charged 4GB graphics card uses low leakage chips handpicked by TGT, and the overclock to 1211MHz (Max Boost clock 1289MHz) confirmed it. Note that the GTX 680 Beast’s Base GPU clock went up to 1223MHz, and we wouldn’t expect anything less from the Ultra Charged cards, provided you’re willing to put some work into it.

The 4GB version goes for €60 more than the 2GB one, but this is not only due to more memory – PoV/TGT’s handpicked low leakage chips provide excellent auto overclocking and further overclocking headroom, making the GTX 680 Ultra Charged 4GB pack one serious punch.

Nvidia has rolled out its latest tech demo that goes under the "A New Dawn" name and features Nvidia's well known Dawn character seen quite some time ago as a part of the tech demo for Geforce FX Series graphics cards.

The new tech demo brings a handful of novelties and definitely looks better than ever. The tech demo features DirectX 11 tessellation, over four million triangles on vines and forest details, realistically rendered Dawn's hair with 40k strands, and sub-surface scattering feature that makes Dawn's skin even more real.

We did not have a chance to power it up for ourselves but according to post around the net and judging by the Youtube video below, the new tech demo is certainly impressive.

You can download the new tech demo here and you can check out the video below.

Nvidia Kepler specs are finally out, thanks to a leak dug up by Lenzfire. We already spoke about some upcoming cards, but the leaked chards now paint a more or less full picture of Nvidia’s upcoming architecture.

The Kepler series will consist of three cores, which will be the building blocks for seven cards, including a dual-GPU card.

The GK106 is a mainstream part and it will power the GTX 640 and GTX 650. The GTX 640 packs 192 stream processors, 16 ROPs, 128-bit memory bus and a memory bandwidth of 88GB/s. The GTX 650 promises to deliver quite a bit more performance, as it has 256 cores and a 192-bit memory bus, enough for 132GB/s worth of memory bandwidth. Interestingly, the GTX 640 will feature 2GB of memory, while the GTX 650 will end up with 1.5GB. The clocks are 850MHz and 900MHz respectively. In terms of performance, Nvidia reckons the new cards will be on par with GTX 550Ti and GTX 560 cards. The price points for GK106 series cards are $139 for the 640 and $179 for the GTX 650

The GK104 will probably be the card of choice for most consumers. This mid range part will also come in two flavours, the GTX 560Ti with a 224-bit bus and the GTX 660 with a 256-bit bus. The GTX 560Ti ends up with 448 cores, 850MHz clock and 154GB/s of bandwidth. It will pack a rather awkward 1.75GB of memory and the price stands at $249. The GTX 660 will feature 2GB of memory and a 900MHz clock, but it will also be significantly pricier at $319. However, Nvidia expects the latter to match the GTX 580 in the performance department, so the price looks pretty good. The GTX 560Ti should be neck and neck with the GTX 570, which sounds pretty good for $249.

As for the big guns, the GK110 will end up in four cards, including the dual-GPU GTX 690. It will cost a whopping $999 and it will launch in Q3, so let’s focus on single GPU cards for the time being. The GTX 660Ti is said to feature an 850MHz clock, 768 stream processors, 1.5GB of memory and a 384-bit bus. It should cost €399 when it launches in Q2/Q3 and Nvidia claims it will be about 10 percent faster than the HD 7950. The GTX 670 ends up with 1.75GB of memory, 896 cores and a 448-bit bus, all for $499. Nvidia pits this one against the HD 7970 and it claims it is about 20 percent faster. The flagship GTX 680 packs 2GB of memory, 1024 cores and a 512-bit bus. Nvidia wants $649 for it, but then again it claims the GTX 680 should beat the GTX 7970 by 45 percent.

Too optimistic? Well only time will tell. The GTX 670 and GTX 680, along with the GTX 660 should launch on April 12, giving AMD a comfortable lead in the meantime. Of course, in-house performance projections should always be taken with a grain of salt, but at this point it seems AMD will lose the performance crown come April. However, with some price cuts AMD should be able to compete with Kepler in terms of value for money. Also, bear in mind that AMD will also introduce its dual-GPU card in early Q2.